In 2008 Michael Sanchez, a Masters of Landscape Architecture student at the University of Oregon, won the GCA/Douglas Dockery Thomas Fellowship in Garden History and Design. His proposed project — to explore, document and present one of California’s most treasured outdoor spaces, the gardens of Mission Santa Barbara — ultimately became his master’s thesis. The $4,000 fellowship award helped Michael fund travel and supplies for a two-week research trip to the site and its archive.

Michael’s research examines the integration of landscape representation, through a series of ‘over-drawings’, as a method of exploring and promoting the historic preservation of landscapes. Through mapping, photography, painting and intaglio printmaking, he aims to portray landscapes in a way that engenders future exploration and preservation of these valuable cultural resources.

“This project is not a typical historical analysis of the landscape of Mission Santa Barbara, nor a detailed historic rendering of the beautiful architecture and surrounding landscape. Nor is this merely a literary compilation. This project is a unique perspective between all of the professionals that tell stories of the missions — architects, landscape architects, planners, artists, historians, archeologists, anthropologists, Padres, tourists, etc. — and is woven into a product rich in illustrations and backed by interesting facts and sources.”

With his MLA now in hand, Michael’s immediate priorities are sleep, recovery and spending time with his family. Ultimately he would like to teach, and plans to do some adjunct teaching at the University of Oregon next year. He currently works as a landscape architect for a small design firm in Eugene.

Heard about the Landscape Performance Series, but still not clear on how it can be useful to you?

We’ve developed a 45-min webinar to provide an overview and demonstration of the various resources and tools in the series. The webinar lasts 45-60 minutes and can be presented to groups of 10-100 attendees.

So far we’ve reached hundreds through webinars with offices of JJR, Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, AECOM, Design Workshop, and HOK, and the feedback has been extremely positive.

Presenting to Chicago, Ann Arbor, Madison, and Phoenix via JJR Live!

“This is a fantastic tool! I can think of a number of ways this would’ve been helpful on past proiects…and with meetings I have in the next few weeks.”

“I can see many opportunities to use the Factoid Library in particular.”

“I’m inspired to try to measure the impact of my projects.”

“Great resource! We really need to get this information out beyond the landscape architecture profession.”

Contact us at lps@lafoundation.org to schedule a webinar for your firm, department, organization, or group. Or if you’d prefer an in-person presentation/demonstration, we may be coming to your region in 2011. Stay tuned for announcements of upcoming trips and events.

The Landscape Performance Series (LPS) Case Study Briefs form a database of built projects with quantified landscape benefits, searchable by benefit, project type, and/or location. Each case study includes a variety of environmental, economic, and/or social benefits along with a methodology document, before/after images, a list of sustainable features, cost comparison and lessons learned. The vision is to grow this resource to include hundreds of projects, representing a wide range of scales, geographic locations and landscape typologies.

LPS case studies are submitted by designers or other project stakeholders using an online form, and undergo a review and editing process before being published. LAF is currently seeking submissions to add to our growing database of exemplary built projects. The deadline to submit for the next round of review and publication is Tuesday, February 15.

Participation increases awareness about your sustainable project(s), demonstrates thought leadership, and shares information so that others — both inside and outside the profession — can learn from your good work. By contributing to the LPS, you will be helping to enrich our collective knowledge about landscape performance, generate demand for the profession, and assist sustainability implementers around the world in understanding and communicating the value of sustainable landscape solutions.

This semester I had the opportunity to participate in a design workshop with several other US and Italian universities in Castellammare di Stabia, Italy. The eight-day seminar in September was hosted at the Vesuvian Institute and coordinated by the Restoring Ancient Stabiae Foundation. Stabiae was an ancient Roman city buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD along with Pompeii and many other cities around the Bay of Naples. The RAS Foundation is raising public interest in the greater archaeological and cultural district of Vesuvius, beyond the popular tourist destination of Pompeii, to revitalize this economically depressed area with high unemployment. You may remember last year’s ASLA awards and Tom Leader’s Stabiae Archaeological Park Master Plan; this is the same place.

Representing Cornell University at the seminar, members of Kathryn Gleason’s design studio divided into two groups. One worked with architecture students from the University of Maryland on the Castellammare di Stabia Archaeological Park, the second traveled down to Sorrento to develop design proposals for the Villa of Pollio Felix. I was in that second group.

With archaeologist and architect Professor Thomas Howe, the Director of RAS, we took a beautiful drive along the coastal cliffs from Castellammare to Sorrento. The once sumptuous villa of Pollio Felix is now a fantastic ancient ruin. Unlike Pompeii or Stabiae, the zone of destruction of Vesuvius did not extend to the site of this villa, which has fallen slowly into decay over the last 2000 years. There is still a significant portion of the villa platform remaining as well as large terraces which are currently in used for agriculture and olive groves. What makes the place breathtaking is the way the villa juts out into the sea, separated from the mainland by an enclosed cove with a bridge over one side. This cove is used by tourists and locals alike as a swimming hole, giving the site its local name as the Baths of Regina Giovanna — a one-time medieval queen of Naples. You just can’t beat the atmosphere.

Our design challenge lay in increasing accessibility to this secret gem without destroying the character of the place. The difficulties are a steep half-kilometer walk to the site and narrow paths with few railings, but it is magical to be able to wander through the ruins, unguarded, having a tactile experience of history. This has led to some further degradation of the site, but these ruins have been getting extensive use by locals for a very long time, and they have lasted for over 2000 years.

I hadn’t considered the crossover opportunities of archaeology and landscape architecture before this project. The cover of this month’s issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine, opportunely timed, has a design incorporating ruins in Sydney. Cornell Landscape Architecture has two professors with degrees in archaeology, and I’m absorbing as much as I can while I’m here. The whole Italian experience and being immersed in Mediterranean culture and archaeological history was fantastic. Our design proposals are being reviewed by the local mayors and communities right now and in the spring we’ll hear back about the next phase of this ongoing program. My recommendation is to get involved in something that interests you; find a non-profit or international organization and dive in.

Bryan D. Harrison earned his undergraduate degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Rhode Island and is currently pursuing his MLA at Cornell University with a concentration in Landscape History and Ecology. He can be contacted at: bdh65@cornell.edu.

In 2002, Michael Speaks, Dean of the College of Design at the University of Kentucky, coined the phrase ‘design intelligence’ in a series of articles for A + U magazine to describe “that ‘unseen’ array of techniques, relationships, dispositions, and other intangibles, that enables post vanguard practices to innovate by learning from and adapting to instability, and in so doing to distinguish themselves from their vanguard predecessors.” I use the phrase here to represent the bricolage of knowledge that individuals, firms, project teams, etc. possess that allow them to not only operate at the most basic design levels but more importantly, to build upon in order to push their bounds. Indeed, these intelligences come in multiple forms, including extended periods of professional experience or cultivated research as well as interpretation of real-time field data and awareness of pertinent current events.

Sub-watershed Informational thread diagram

Subsequently, my research focuses on framing the role of intelligence within the discipline of landscape architecture, utilizing the Chicago River Watershed as a vehicle of study. Inspired by the works of design strategists such as Alan Berger, Associate Professor of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I have begun an assemblage of regional data sets based primarily in GIS technologies. Also included is a preliminary inventory of existing institutional frameworks. In this sense, a marriage between the understanding of ecological dynamics, infrastructural systems, and human organizations has begun to emerge that spans multiple scales.

Conceptual plan that engages existing water channels, drainage infrastructure, and key land parcels in design at the watershed scale

Particularly challenging is the navigation between the polar extremes of these scales, namely regional planning and site design, where a quote from Berger’s Systemic Design Can Change the World has served as a guide – “I promote using the new tools of analysis [GIS, www, etc.] to expand site program and strategy outward, adjusting and feeding back small scale issues based on large scale logic all the way through the design process. The resulting project is smarter and more sustainable [able to live without expensive, infinite inputs] if larger scale logic is embedded in the smaller scale proposals.”

Utilizing my collection of data sets in a series of regional analyses, I have begun to examine large-scale relationships and connections that might not otherwise have been observed. Common characteristics among landscapes that are miles apart have surfaced, revealing potentially unexpected bases for design collaboration. Additionally, details associated with single sites have served to distinguish and clarify their role in larger contexts. In this manner, sites are never reduced to isolated parcels but rather remain viewed in relation to the whole. Given the large scale of the Chicago River Watershed, however, this type of analysis is virtually limitless where my work up to this point has only begun to scratch the surface.

For more information over the coming months, research findings and design engagement will be posted at www.brambarth.com.

Bram Barth earned his undergraduate degree in Landscape Architecture from Ball State University and is currently pursuing his MLA at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Following graduation, he will return to practice as a licensed landscape architect for WRD Environmental, an ecological consulting firm based in Chicago. For questions regarding his research and work, he may be contacted at barth4@illinois.edu.